Sunny day, sweepin' in gravity...

An Internet cookie to anyone who automatically sang the thread title to the tune of the Sesame Street theme song.

While I did like my previous attempt at a VGC team, it had started to feel kind of boring, and I seemed to be struggling against other goodstuff teams. I wanted to try something interesting and uncommon, and after a discussion regarding Lilligant I thought I'd give sun a try; during the teambuilding and testing I fell in love with it. A few later changes added Gravity to the mix as well. In general, the team works through either controlling the opponent by limiting their options, or KOing threats with powerful boosted moves before they can do anything back.

Sun team needs Drought, so Ninetales was a no-brainer.
Lilligant was what made me decide on the team in the first place, and she's pretty awesome, so that was another given.
Next I wanted a strong Fire-type sweeper, and some calcs with Darmanitan's Flare Blitz was all it took to convince me that he was the monster I needed.
Lilligant is good, but her offensive coverage leaves much to be desired, so I wanted an alternate Chlorophyll user, and a second Sleep Powder couldn't hurt anything. It came down to either Venusaur or Victreebel, and the latter both seemed like it had a better movepool and was far easier for me to obtain.
I wanted one more sweeper, and I noticed that Vanilluxe could learn Weather Ball. Remembering how annoying the ice cream cone was in VGC11, I added it without a second thought. In retrospect, this was kind of a dumb choice.
For my final choice, I looked over my team and realized I would struggle against Trick Room teams and Chandelure in general, so I went for the Pokémon best equipped to handle both of those things: Scrafty.
After about three battles it became incredibly obvious to me that Vanilluxe was a horrible choice for this team, and opposing Fire-types were being a bother, so I dropped it for Marowak.
I did some more testing, and while the team was fairly successful, I noticed several things: 1) Scrafty was great against Trick Room, but that was pretty much all I used it against, 2) Losing Vanilluxe's Ice coverage gave me a really hard time against dragons and a few other things, 3) A lot of the top threats either are Flying-type or have Levitate, reducing Marowak's power in a lot of situations, and 4) I had quite a few moves with unreliable accuracy. At this point, adding Porygon2 for Gravity support was the only logical move I could see.

The obligatory weather starter, Ninetales's job is to survive until the opposing weather starter is KO'd (if applicable), then troll everything and occasionally do some damage. Disable is a really awesome move, and I have no idea why more people don't use it. Many Pokémon only have one attack that's effective in a given situation, and if you can stop them from using it you've basically removed them from the fight. Will-O-Wisp of course neutralizes most physical attackers, and Fire Blast is powerful enough to make up for the lack of Special Attack investment, often 2HKOing or even OHKOing many threats in the sun. I went for maximum Defense since Ninetales's Water weakness is removed in the sun, and the majority of Rock and Ground moves are physical. It's incredibly bulky, and in my testing I've seen few attacks do more than 50%.

Much of Lilligant's power lies in the fact that most people underestimate her and then get caught off-guard. But with a Modest nature, her Special Attack is only four points short of Timid Latios, meaning her Leaf Storm is just as dangerous as a Draco Meteor to anything that doesn't resist Grass, and sometimes even more so - for instance, it's a clean OHKO on Tyranitar even in the sand, which lets me take advantage of the fact that most Tyranitar users play it aggressively against sun teams. Sleep Powder just makes her even more deadly, and Sunny Day gives me a chance of making a comeback if the opponent takes out Ninetales prematurely. 180 Speed EVs let her outspeed everything up to Scarf Terrakion in the sun.

I'm normally not a fan of Choice sets in doubles, since it's a lot harder to switch and being locked into the wrong move can be disastrous. But Darmanitan can get away with it since Flare Blitz punches through everything that isn't flat-out immune, OHKOing almost anything that doesn't resist it and even some things that do (for instance, Latios takes 89%-105%). Superpower and Rock Slide are really only for dealing with Flash Fire mons and a couple of other major threats (most notably Tyranitar), since a resisted Flare Blitz hits harder than a neutral Superpower or even a super effective Rock Slide, and U-turn is pretty much just there for lack of a better option. Speed EVs let it beat base 130 Pokémon.

The second Sleep Powder user, and primary Chlorophyll sweeper, this is the Pokémon that wins most of my games. I really don't understand why Venusaur is so much more popular on sun teams - not only is Victreebel vastly easier to obtain, but Leaf Storm gives it a significantly more powerful STAB option, and Weather Ball is also much better than HP Fire (and still useful in rain - Grass/Water/Poison is only resisted by Toxicroak, Ferrothorn, and Shedinja). The three attacking moves (all of which get either STAB or the sun boost) get amazing coverage, only resisted by Chandelure and Heatran, and Sleep Powder is just as nasty as it is on Lilligant. 4 Speed EVs let it outspeed uninvested base 70s outside of sun, and everything up to the genies in it.

Like Darmanitan, there really isn't much more to Marowak than hitting stuff as hard as possible. Since most of my other Pokémon don't like taking Earthquakes, Bonemerang is far superior as a Ground attack, and not suffering the spread modifier just makes it that much easier to take down the Fire-types my team struggles with. Similarly, Stone Edge's superior single-target power made me choose it over the more popular Rock Slide, since Marowak's job is to make things die as quickly as possible (and since the low Speed mitigates the possibility of flinch hax). Fire Punch becomes a great coverage move with the sun boost, and Fire/Ground has perfect coverage in Gravity. Lightningrod doesn't see much use, but it's occasionally nice for helping to shut down Zapdos and a few other threats.

The latest addition to my team, but perhaps the most game-changing one. Gravity keeps me from relying on hax with low-accuracy moves, shuts down Earthquake-abusing combos like ZapChomp, makes Marowak vastly more dangerous, and can really throw off players that don't see it coming. Trick Room keeps some of Scrafty's utility by being able to reverse it, and I could make an interesting Trick Room team myself (likely Ninetales/Porygon2/Darmanitan/Marowak) if I ever found myself in a situation that demanded it. Ice Beam makes it a replacement for Vanilluxe as well, cleaning up many of the Pokémon that my other sweepers can't really hurt. HP Ground is much less important than the other three moves, but it can be useful if Marowak gets KO'd or I'm unable to fit it in my lineup.

Team Threats
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Sun: The mirror matchup is probably the hardest of the weathers since my team doesn't really like Fire-types. Generally I'll try to put key threats to sleep with Lilligant (since she outspeeds most other common Chlorophyll users) and then punch giant holes in everything else with Darmanitan or Marowak.Sand: This is usually pretty easy unless they play Tyranitar incredibly conservatively, since Lilligant, Darmanitan, and Marowak can all KO it with ease. Lilligant takes a big chunk out of Terrakion even at -2, Garchomp and Excadrill are easy to handle once the weather is in my favor, and nothing else is particularly threatening.Rain: Like with sand teams, Politoed tends to be played aggressively against sun teams, so I try to take advantage of that and take it down with Grass attacks before sending in Ninetales. Also like sand, I can usually roflstomp the rest of their team once I have control of the weather.Hail: 2/3 of my team can easily KO Abomasnow, and see above for once I control the weather, so all I really have to do is not be an idiot.Trick Room: The second hardest style to deal with after sun. I try to sleep/KO the TR user on the first turn; if that fails, then I KO the user as quickly as possible and reverse it with Porygon2. Proceed to sweep as usual.Goodstuff: If they have Tyranitar/Abomasnow, then I treat the team like a weather team until I've KO'd it. Otherwise, I'll generally lead Ninetales/Porygon2, set up Gravity, and then focus on controlling the opponent.

Hey, a team that is vastly different from what I usually see! What a change.

Good team, I really don't have much to add, except possibly try Choice Scarf Darmanitan. He really appreciates the extra speed, especially when launching his trademark Sun-boosted Sheer Force STAB Flare Blitzes. He can help you a lot more with Scarf Abomasnow, who will always see great opportunities to reverse the weather and murder you with STAB Blizzard.

That's all, again, nice team, it's good to have something different for a change!

Hey, a team that is vastly different from what I usually see! What a change.

Good team, I really don't have much to add, except possibly try Choice Scarf Darmanitan. He really appreciates the extra speed, especially when launching his trademark Sun-boosted Sheer Force STAB Flare Blitzes. He can help you a lot more with Scarf Abomasnow, who will always see great opportunities to reverse the weather and murder you with STAB Blizzard.

That's all, again, nice team, it's good to have something different for a change!

Click to expand...

Hmm, I'm usually hesitant to use Choiced mons in doubles, but since I pretty much just spam Flare Blitz anyway I'd only really lose Protect. I'll definitely try it out.

91.66...%, isn't it? I think I did that right, 55*5/3.
Besides, Sleep Powder is much more accurate without Gravity (since I don't always have a chance to set it up right away or even use Porygon2 at all), with Chlorophyll it's practically priority anyway, and Whimsicott doesn't have any offensive ability.

As I mentioned in the team-building spoiler, Gravity was sort of an afterthought when I kept getting annoyed by moves missing and Marowak not being able to hit stuff. I actually didn't notice the similarities until just now :P Though it seems like his team is more of a goodstuff team with Ninetales for weather control than a full sun team.

To which you are right. I originally had a Sun team with a Trick Room for backup in mind, but I dumped it in a GravityStuff team because I didn't like the, umm, small coverage I had, because I had no idea how to counter certain teams, such as Trick Room and Gravity itself.

Great team though. I like it!

*Edit* Although looking back, you don't actually have a backup Sun user. For example, what if a Politoed with a Iron Ball came out, and you had to switch out your Ninetales, because Drizzle went last. When you switch back in, your Ninetales will die from Surf. Either that, or lose your Sun coverage, albeit for a little bit. Having a Sunny Day user as a backup helps.

I am not a fan of that Lilligant set... does it actually work? Mono-Grass, albeit a grass move with 140 BP, that drops in special attack seems very undesirable to me. Personally, I would replace it with Heatran for some nifty resistances to Dragon and Fire moves, and a much more rich offensive movepool. You do miss out on Lilligant's Speed and Sleep Powder, but it wouldn't hurt to try. (plz ignore this if Heatran is not readily accessible to you). I would add Sunny Day on Ninetales, which makes more sense, so that your offensive Sun Sweepers can attack on the same turn rather than setting up the Sun. Sunny Day over Wisp or Disable is up to you.

I would consider Ice Beam on Porygon2. You do not want to waste a turn to put up Gravity before Porygon2 can reliably take out Dragon-types. I would also consider Thunderbolt over HP Ground on Porygon2 to provide additional offense against Water-types, especially now that you have Heatran.

I recommend Leaf Storm or SolarBeam on Victreebel for the sheer power upgrade from Giga Drain.

Lilligant actually works surprisingly well - I generally play her as more of a fast Sleep Powder dispenser, with Leaf Storm as a backup option that I use for dealing with certain threats. As for Heatran, I feel like it'd be too redundant with three Fire-types on the team (plus Weather Ball and Fire Punch), not to mention a massive weakness to Ground and (if the weather changes) Water. Sunny Day on Ninetales sounds like it might work, but it'll be hard deciding what to get rid of. I'll have to think about that for a while.

I'll definitely try out Ice Beam and Thunderbolt, since I don't use HP Ground very much anyway.

I suggested replacing HP Ground for TBolt, since I figured Heatran could be used to dispatch opposing Heatrans rather than P2. However, without Heatran I suggest sticking with HP Ground on Porgyon2 or possibly over Sludge Bomb on Victreebel, because opposing Heatran would be a huge ass to deal with.